February 6, 2009

George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars films, has attributed the origins of "The Force" to the 1963 Arthur Lipsett abstract film 21-87 which used samples from many sources.

"One of the audio sources Lipsett sampled for 21-87 [a film that had a great influence on Lucas] was a conversation between artificial intelligence pioneerWarren S. McCulloch and Roman Kroitor , a cinematographer who went on to develop IMAX. In the face of McCulloch's arguments that living beings are nothing but highly complex machines, Kroitor insists that there is something more: 'Many people feel that in the contemplation of nature and in communication with other living things, they become aware of some kind of force, or something, behind this apparent mask which we see in front of us, and they call it God.'"

"When asked if this was the source of "the Force," Lucas confirms that his use of the term in Star Wars was 'an echo of that phrase in 21-87.'"